Milestones: 1961–1968

U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive, 1968

In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North
Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against
a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South
Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the
communist assault. The Tet Offensive played an important role in weakening U.S.
public support for the war in Vietnam.

U.S. Captain Franklin Eller coordinates with military command during the
Tet Offensive

Ho Chi Minh and leaders in Hanoi planned the Tet Offensive
in the hopes of achieving a decisive victory that would end the grinding
conflict that frustrated military leaders on both sides. A successful attack on
major cities might force the United States to negotiate or perhaps even to
withdraw. At the very least, the North Vietnamese hoped it would serve to stop
the ongoing escalation of guerilla attacks and bombing in the North. Hanoi
selected the Tet holiday to strike because it was traditionally a time of truce,
and because Vietnamese traveling to spend the festival with their relatives
provided cover for the movement of South Vietnamese National Liberation
Forces (NLF) who supported the communist forces.

The first phase of the assault began on January 30 and 31, when NLF forces
simultaneously attacked a number of targets, mostly populated areas and places
with heavy U.S. troop presence. The strikes on the major cities of
Huế and Saigon had a strong
psychological impact, as they showed that the NLF troops were not as weak as the
Johnson Administration had previously claimed. The NLF
even managed to breach the outer walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Although
the first phase of the offensive became the most famous, a second phase also
launched simultaneous assaults on smaller cities and towns on May 4 and
stretched into June. A third phase began in August and lasted six weeks. In the
months that followed, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces retook the towns that the
NLF had secured over the course of the offensive, but they incurred heavy
military and civilian casualties in the process.

At the end of the Tet Offensive, both sides had endured losses, and both sides
claimed victory. The U.S. and South Vietnamese military response almost
completely eliminated the NLF forces and regained all of the lost territory. At
the same time, the Tet Offensive weakened domestic support for the Johnson
Administration as the vivid reporting on the Tet Offensive by the U.S. media
made clear to the American public that an overall victory in Vietnam was not
imminent.

The aftermath of Tet brought public discussions about de-escalation, but not
before U.S. generals asked for additional troops for a wide-scale “accelerated
pacification program.” Believing that the U.S. was in a position to defeat the
North, these military leaders sought to press for a U.S.-South Vietnam
offensive. Johnson and others, however, read the situation differently. Johnson
announced that the bombing of North Vietnam would cease
above the 20th parallel and placed a limit on U.S. troops in South
Vietnam. Johnson also attempted to set parameters for peace
talks, but it would be several more years before these came to fruition. Within
the United States, protests against continued involvement in Vietnam
intensified. On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced that he would not seek a
second term as president. The job of finding a way out of Vietnam was left to
the next U.S. president, Richard Nixon.